1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer apparatus, a printing method, and a program. In particular, the present invention relates to a printer apparatus capable of printing, on an image, other image information such as characters such as a date and a name, and a decorative frame, a printing method for the printer apparatus, and a program for performing printing by the printer apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A thermal transfer type printer apparatus uses an ink sheet and a recording sheet, selectively drives a plurality of heating elements arranged in a main scanning direction, and conveys the ink sheet and the recording sheet in a sub scanning direction, thereby printing an image on the recording sheet in a dot line manner. When an image captured by an input apparatus such as a digital camera is printed with use of the thermal transfer type printer apparatus, sometimes a date when the image was captured is printed within the image by utilizing a clock provided in the input apparatus. However, a viewer may have a significantly uncomfortable feeling to printed characters such as a date depending on the image that is a print target. With the aim of solving such an uncomfortable feeling, for example, there is a technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-73034. A thermal transfer type printer apparatus discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-73034 can record information by an overcoat layer by changing a transfer amount of a protective ink for forming the overcoat layer. More specifically, this thermal transfer type printer changes an applied amount (i.e., a thickness) of the overcoat layer by controlling an output (a heat amount) of a thermal head. As a result, the thermal transfer type printer apparatus forms concavity and convexity on the surface of the overcoat layer to print information.